The invention relates to imaging systems. The present invention particularly relates to aerial reconnaissance systems and methods.
Various known teachings which are believed to be related to various ones of the innovations disclosed herein will now be discussed. However, it should be noted that not every idea discussed in this section is necessarily prior art. For example, characterizations of particular patents or publications may relate them to inventive concepts in a way which is itself based on knowledge of some of the inventive concepts. Moreover, the following discussion attempts to fairly present various suggested technical alternatives (to the best of the inventor's knowledge), even though the teachings of some of those technical alternatives may not be "prior art" under the patent laws of the United States or of other countries.
In aerial reconnaissance, the cost of each reconnaissance run is relatively large. It is therefore desirable to obtain a large amount of information from each run.
In one class of aerial systems, the motion of the air vehicle provides a scanning motion in one direction. Thus, it has long been recognized that a continuous sequence of linear images of the ground provides a convenient way to assemble a large-area image. In such a system, one of the determinants of image resolution is the lateral resolution within the image track.